THIS BLOG OPPOSES DRACONIAN LAWS & POLITICAL SCAPEGOATING BY SOME POLITICIANS! * THE PUNISHMENT IS THE CRIME * FOR A WORLD WITHOUT VIOLENCE * WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM? * A) DALAI LAMA: "LOVE, PEACE AND KINDNESS YOU CAN'T BREAK IT." * B) FREDERICK NIETZSCHE: "LOVE YOUR ENEMY." * THERE IS ALSO FORGIVENESS BUT YOU DON'T GET THE COMPLETE PROTECTION UNLESS YOU ACCEPT BOTH OF THE A & B CONDITIONS * & FOR THAT YOU MUST COME TO TERMS WITH C) FORGIVENESS * :-)

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

On May 18, a briefing by top Pentagon generals conceded that the US would need to maintain the current numbers of troops in Iraq --- 138,000.

According to a United Press International report published the next day, General John Abizaid, who directs all US military forces in the Middle East, described the progress in developing Iraqi forces to fight the anti-occupation resistance as "disappointing".

Just days later, on May 25, the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online website reported that the Pentagon is considering abandoning the creation a regular Iraqi army, instead relying on irregular militias under US command. The report stated: "According to Asia Times Online contacts, these US-backed militias will comprise three main segments --- former Kurdish peshmerga (paramilitaries), former members of the Badr Brigade and those former members of the Baath Party and the Iraqi army who were part of the Saddam regime but who have now thrown in their lot with the new Iraqi government...

"Military analysts believe the US military in Iraq will use the Kurd and Shiite militias to quell the resistance in central and northern Iraq, while in the south the former Baathists and old-guard Iraqi soldiers will be used against anti-US Shiite groups."

No Iraqi troops accompanied US forces in Operation Matador, the largest single US-led military operation in Iraq since last November's assault on the rebel city of Fallujah.

Involving 1000 US marines, Operation Matador was a week-long assault on alleged "foreign jihadists" in the town of Qaim, 320 kilometres west of Baghdad, and in desert villages near the Syrian border. Fourteen marines were killed in the operation, which began on May 7.

While the Pentagon publicly claims that most of the attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq are the work of non-Iraqi Islamist fighters, shortly after the Fallujah offensive in November, then-interim Iraqi interior minister Faleh Hassan al Naqib said no more than 6% of the anti-occupation fighters were non-Iraqis.

On May 14, US officials pronounced Operation Matador a great success, claiming US troops had "killed 125 insurgents". However, in May 16 dispatch from Baghdad, the Knight Ridder Newspapers news agency depicted it as a political disaster for the US.

According to the KRN report: "Operation Matador began with the marines sweeping into the Qaim area in armored vehicles, backed up by helicopter gunships. They pummeled suspected insurgent safe houses, flattening parts of the villages and killing armed men...

"When the offensive ended, however, angry residents returned to find blocks of destruction. Men who'd stayed behind to help were found dead in shot-up houses."

Fasal al Goud, a local tribal leader and former US-appointed governor of Iraq's western Anbar province, told KRN: "The Americans were bombing whole villages, and saying they were only after the foreigners."

On May 17, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' IRIN news agency reported that 6000 terrified inhabitants of Qaim had fled the town and were camped in the desert.

Meanwhile, on May 18, Harith al Dari, head of the influential Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), accused the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) of being behind the recent assassinations of Sunni clerics.

The AMS is widely seen as the public political face of the anti-occupation resistance movement, while the SCIRI is one of two Shiite cleric-led parties that dominate the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the main political bloc in Iraq's transitional parliament and in Washington's puppet Iraqi government.

The Radio Free Europe website reported on May 23 that "while armed gangs disguised as police and National Guard forces may be behind a string of attacks on both Sunnis and Shiites across Iraq... some reports indicate that the perpetrators could in fact be members of the Badr Organisation bent on seeking revenge against its perceived enemies, including rebel Shiite leader Moqtada al Sadr, whose followers clashed with police in Kufa following Friday prayers on May 6."

Associated Press reported that on May 22 senior aides to Sadr met with AMS representatives "in a bid to soothe tensions that have flared amid violence that has killed at least 550 people, including 10 Shiite and Sunni clerics, since the new Shiite-dominated government was announced on April 28".

"There is a wound that needs to be treated and Moqtada was the first to offer his medicine", AMS spokesperson Sheik Abdul Salam al Kubaisi told reporters after the talks with Sadr's delegation.

"Iraqis need to stand side by side at this time", Sadr said in an interview aired that same day on the Al Arabiya TV station.

The following day, Sadr spokesperson Sheik Ghaith al Tamimi rejected an appeal by the UIA to participate in the drafting of a new constitution for the country. "Even if they asked Moqtada al Sadr himself to help draft the constitution, we'd still consider it incomplete and illegitimate as long as there is occupation", Tamimi said.

UN Dialogue among CivilizationsThis roundtable is a contribution to the UN Dialogue among Civilizations project that began in September 2000. At the first round table debate on Dialogue among Civilizations, Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN stated that, cultural diversity - in his opinion - is not only the basis for the Dialogue among Civilizations, but also the reality that makes dialogue necessary, since the perception of diversity as a threat is the very seed of war. [The role of religion in creating a culture of peace and moving on from a culture of fear.]

BUSH ON TRIALTuesday May 17, 2005, Brussels - Today, representatives of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) delivered a law summon and invitation letter addressed to President Bush at the US Embassy in Brussels.

Iraqi police vent anger at US after car bombingsIraqi police hurled insults at US soldiers after two suicide car bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded, including policemen. "It's all because you're here," a policeman shouted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers after the latest in a bloody wave of attacks that have rocked Baghdad this month. "Get out of our country and there will be no more explosions," he told the uncomprehending Americans staring at the smouldering wreck of a car bomb.

300,000 Iraqis protest occupation and genocideBAGHDAD, Iraq - Chanting "Death to America" and burning effigies of President Bush and Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded central Baghdad on Saturday in what police called the largest anti-American protest since the fall of Baghdad, the capital, exactly two years ago.

Annan calls for human rights agency revamp!The commission has been harshly criticised recently by human rights groups claiming it has become less of a body for upholding human rights, and more of a haven for violators.

Returning veterans of Iraq/AfghanistanIn the last two years, nearly one million U.S. service-members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of how you may feel about the war, most of us agree that those service-members deserve the best possible care and treatment our country can provide.

The Veil of FreedomBAGHDAD, Iraq - Two years after the invasion of Iraq and just weeks before the country's first free election, [occupation, US puppet gov't] "Amina" began wearing a headscarf for the first time in her life. Her father insisted upon it.

Iraqi women eye Islamic lawBAGHDAD - Covered in layers of flowing black fabric that extend to the tips of her gloved hands, Jenan al-Ubaedy knows her first priority as one of some 90 women who will sit in the national assembly: implementing Islamic law.

IRAQ: Shiite and Sunnis to unite against occupation?Iraq: "I call on all religious and political powers that pushed towards the elections and took part in them to issue an official statement calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq", Moqtada al Sadr, the popular young Iraqi Shiite cleric who last year led an armed rebellion against the US-led occupation, declared on February 4.

Democracy, Iraqi style"In a darkened hall, candidates for Iraq's main Shia party sit listening to a turbaned cleric speaking into a microphone. They are being told how to campaign for the election without getting killed.

Violence continues ahead of Iraq Shoe SalePre-Shoe Sale violence in Iraq is showing no signs of abating with the deaths today of two American militants following on from yesterday's killing of 22 US/Iraqi militants.

Rumsfeld's war, torture and occupation ideology!War criminal Donald Rumsfeld faced critical questioning at a Washington media conference, after the announcement that it was a suicide bomber who caused the blast inside a US military base in Mosul yesterday, killing 22 people including 14 illegal militants.

Annan admits to a tough yearUnited Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan admits he has had his worst year at the United Nations and he is looking forward to it being over.

Iraq sale to be contested by 100 buyersA hundred buyers, blocs and independents will contest Iraq's first shoe sale, in decades, on January 30, the George Dubya Bushit - Iraqi Sales Commission (GDB/ISC) said.

Fallujah refugees in desperate need of aid: UNMore than 200,000 people who fled Fallujah ahead of the US attack have yet to return and many are in desperate need of aid, with temperatures in Iraq heading towards freezing, a new UN emergency report says.

World Vision Aust pulls out of IraqThe organisation says the country has simply become too dangerous and its decision to leave was made before the apparent murder of Care Australia's Iraq director Margaret Hassan.

Civilian death toll to rise in FallujahThe attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah has taken its toll on Iraqi civilians no doubt including children and young babies. Iraqi's have witnessed civilian casualties. Yesterday during the assault on the main hospital nurses and patients were blindfolded after the US/Iraq militia stormed the main hospital and took control.

Illusionary demons blamed for US led Attack Iraq, FallujahIn the name of an illusionary figure thought up by US militants suggests that Al Qaeda's? ally "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" has called on Muslims to take up arms against their US enemy as American militia attacked the Iraqi city of Fallujah? Just a coincidence or just good timing?

Full-scale attack on Fallujah beginsCorrespondents say radio traffic heard at a US militant's staging post just outside Fallujah indicates US/Iraqi militia have moved at least four blocks into Fallujah, and are still advancing.

US/Iraqi militants storm Fallujah hospitalUnited States troops and US/Iraqi militia have seized the main hospital in the Iraqi city of Fallujah without a fight, according to a pool reporter travelling [in-bed] with the troops. Those in hospital beds did not resist they were too sick and the doctor kept on operating regardless.

US warplanes and artillery attack Fallujah!Journalists [in-bed] with the US military say warplanes fired at suspected resistance targets around Fallujah as night fell on Sunday, while artillery shells pounded a nearby town.

State of emergency: Allawi 'killer of saints'The US puppet, Iyad Allawi otherwise known as "Sock" killer of saints has declared a state of emergency for 60 days to quell violent resistance gripping the country ahead of January's shoe sale.

US Empire Votes For Pre-Emptive War!!!United States President George Dubya Bushit has been re-elected, winning four more years to press his war on liberty after a bitter campaign against Democrat John Kerry that focused on the US empire's role as - imperialists - initiating pre-emptive war - on the sovereign nation of Iraq - without the United Nations approval and in direct contravention of International law.

Saddam's family dismiss lawyerThe family of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has dismissed the head of his defence team. Other team members had accused the lawyer, Mohammad Rashdan, of acting without consulting them.

Iraqi civilian deaths put at 100,000Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 "excess deaths" in 18 months.

Bushite group threatens civil liberties in IraqAllegedly a group led by George W Bushite has forced freedom fighters to threaten to behead a Japanese hostage it said worked with Japanese forces in Iraq if Tokyo does not withdraw its forces from the country within 48 hours.

Weapons inspectors missed WMD in IraqAn Iraqi minister has said United Nations nuclear inspectors are welcome to return in response to concerns of an "apparent systematic dismantlement" of Saddam Hussein's once-vigorous nuclear program.

US accused of breaching international lawThe United States is violating international law by holding prisoners in its war on terror incommunicado and in secret hiding places, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be published on Tuesday calling for an end to such practices.

Allies 'planned' Iraq war despite denialsThe United States, Australia and Britain started to plan the invasion of Iraq months before the conflict, according to a report Wednesday quoting a leaked Pentagon document.

UN warns of Iraqi malnutritionOne in four Iraqis are dependent on food rations to survive and many of them have to sell what little food they have for basic necessities like medicine and clothes, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said.

Jordan's king doubts Iraqi elections possibleIraq is far too unsafe to hold elections as scheduled in January and extremists would do well in the poll if Baghdad tried to hold it, Jordan's King Abdullah said in an interview. Excluding troubled areas from the nationwide poll would only isolate Iraq's Sunnis and create deeper divisions in the country, he said.

Annan tells world leaders to respect lawUnited Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan has made an impassioned plea to bring about the rule of law across the globe today. Mr Annan told world leaders to respect international law at home and abroad.

CO-OFFENDERS DO NOT REBUFF UN ON 'ILLEGAL WAR'The 'coalition of the killing's' complicities - the US, Britain and Australia - have insisted that their countries' military action in Iraq was legal after they have committed war crimes against humanity.

Iraq war illegal, says AnnanUnited Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says the United States decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 was "illegal". Australia was a key supporter of the war on Iraq and sent troops to join the United States-led invasion last year.

Bush team 'knew of abuse' at GuantanamoEvidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantanamo Bay reached the highest levels of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a new investigation.

Ancient Babylon ruined by foreign troops: Iraqi ministerIraq: Foreign forces in Iraq have caused severe damage to the site of ancient Babylon, one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, and need to leave the area as soon as possible, Iraq's Culture Minister Mofeed al-Jazaeri said.

Whatcha Gonna Do, When They Come For You? Bad boy!Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a threat and sought to possess weapons of mass destruction, United States President George W Bush reaffirmed when asked why no such weapons had been discovered in Iraq.

Saddam trial US propagandaSaddam Hussein's trial will play an important part in the US election no doubt and for that to work at its potential just put a "women" behind it "She called the trials". Then add some "cleansing" like she's just doing the dishes and then some "reconciliation" by slaying Hussein during a US election. Now you can go and tell everyone you're reversing the trauma but really you're killing two birds with one Saddam.